Waking the Dead
by prettyserious
Summary: Wracked with guilt and disconnected from the world, Temperance Brennan is fraying at the seams. Her team is disintegrating in front of her and friends are slipping away. How can she deal with the grief without losing herself? Who else can understand?
1. Chapter 1

Waking the Dead  
Synopsis: Wracked with guilt and disconnected from the world, Temperance Brennan is fraying at the seams. Her team is disintegrating in front of her and friends are slipping away. How can she deal with the grief without losing herself?

Note: I'm an avid "Bones" fan and can't help but spend time thinking about "what ifs"? As a lowly typewriter jokey, I own neither Brennan nor Booth nor any of our other anthropological friends. My eternal apologies to Mrs. Montenegro-Hodgins.

-.-.-.-.-

Waking the Dead

Some moments in life seem to fly by - gone and past in an instant, like dandelion seeds spinning in the breeze.

Others slow down, moving in an almost cliche slow motion that just prolongs the agony. Is it a biological reaction that makes the world stop, a mixture of hormones and emotion that controls the deceleration, or is it just a brain grasping to somehow make sense of a situation for which is has no analog?

You can reach out, try to move, but it's like your feet are glued to the ground. You can gasp, but no words seem to form no matter how hard you try.

You might find out later, however, that you couldn't speak simply because your mouth was too busy screaming.

-.-.-.-.-

It was August and summer was refusing to let go. The District of Columbia was sticky hot with the kind of humidity that makes the still air seem like an electric blanket. Heat shimmered off of the black asphalt, giving a Saharan, fairytale feel to the otherwise miserable scene.

"Dr. Hodgins, can you hand me another evidence bag? I have a fingernail." Temperance Brennan looked up, squinting against the late afternoon sun that filtered through the surrounding buildings and lit the service alley. "Looks like she fought."

"Can do." Jack Hodgins stood from the pitiful body he'd been squatting over and retrieved extra bags from one of the evidence collection toolboxes they'd unloaded from the van. "Hell of a way to bite it, huh?"

"If by 'bite it', you mean brutally stabbed to death in the shadow of the Supreme Court, then yes. I agree." She took the bags Hodgins extended out to her. "I can certainly think of better ways to 'bite it'."

"From her clothes - and the smell - it looks like she was homeless," he observed, glancing across to the huddle of clothes and blood against the wall. "She might have stayed around here, slept by these buildings. Lots of tourists that might feel bad enough to give her some change."

Brennan rocked back on her heels momentarily, stretching out her cramping calf muscles as she placed the errant fingernail in the bag. "Could be. Can you follow the line of this building and check around those corners? Maybe there'll be a blood trail or a weapon thrown away."

Hodgins gave a little salute, softened by a small smile, and made his way down the alley. Eyes focused on the ground, he reminded Brennan of a trained canine on the scent of something excitingly elusive. For better or worse, he enjoyed field work almost as much as he loved identifying odds and ends beneath a microscope. The wedding band glinted on his finger as a ray of light caught it; there were certainly many things that he devoted himself to with zeal.

Pulling a marker out of the pocket of her blue jumpsuit, Brennan carefully noted the contents on the front of the bag and its context to the rest of the scene. A bead of sweat dripped off of her nose and plopped onto the bag, smearing the fresh ink and causing her to curse under her breath as she dabbed it off with her sleeve. Working a murder outside in the middle of one of the most achingly hot days of the long summer wasn't exactly what most forensic anthropologists signed on for when they left university. Of course, much of her college years were spent doing just that, in third world countries nonetheless, but it wasn't a common passion among her peers.

"Brennan?" Hodgin's questioning voice brought Brennan back to the present. She blamed the heat for her temporary lack of focus. "I think... I think I found something?" His voice sounded unsure and oddly tense. It echoed off the walls and around her.

She looked up to see him already down the alley a couple of hundred feet, the acoustics of the surrounding buildings carrying his voice easily. "What is it? The weapon?"

"No, not quite." Brennan noticed then the odd way that he was standing - stock still, as if he was afraid of breathing too hard. "I believe we a..." He cleared his throat nervously, "An incendiary device." He continued speaking with that same strained calm.

"A bomb?" Brennan rocketed to her feet. "Can you see any specifics about it from where you are? Don't move closer to look!"

He replied a little breathlessly, "Don't worry, I wasn't thinking about it." Taking a deep drag of air, he steeped backwards gingerly. "I can't tell much about it, it's mostly covered with trash. But there are definitely wires and definitely an antennae. Tell the bomb squad that I smell fertilizer and gasoline."

Brennan already had her cellphone out, punching three numbers on the keypad with a shaking finger. "Yes - this is Dr. Temperance Brennan with the Jeffersonian. We need immediate help at 1st Street and Columbus Circle. Listen very closely: there is a bomb. No, this is not a joke!" She spat, indignant. "There are accelerants around and an electronic detonator. Get them, now!"

Turning towards Hodgins as she started to move back towards the street, she called, "Keep backing up slowly. I'm going to run out to the street to flag them down exactly where we are." He locked eyes and nodded, and the bright blue irises were visible against the stark white surrounding them.

Then, with a sound loud enough to wake the dead, the world burst into fire.


	2. Chapter 2

Waking the Dead

A/N: Thanks for the reviews! One of my biggest pet peeves are angsty stories that seem terribly out of character, so I'm trying very hard to keep everything as real as possible. It means a lot to me that it's showing through so far!

Also, I neglected to mention in the first chapter that this is set about a year and a half after the season finale.

-.-.-.-.-

Chapter 2

"Whoa, sorry! Out of my way!" Seely Booth snapped, pushing his way through the sliding doors of the emergency room and past a startled looking woman with a leg cast. His FBI identification was already out of his pocket and in his hand, just waiting to flash at the first person that gave him any lip.

"Excuse me, sir," said a staid nurse from beyond the check-in window. "Can I help you with something."

"Yes." He pushed the ID against the glass. "FBI. There were two people brought in here - a bombing. I need to see them. Now."

"I can see your credentials just fine." Nurse Mullins, her name badge said, rolled her eyes after taking in his casual jeans and t-shirt. "There were two ambulances brought in, but I don't know anymore than that. If you'll just have a seat, I'll try to find some more information or a doctor for you to talk to."

Booth looked at her steadily, his hands splayed on the counter. "Quickly."

"As quickly as I can, sir."

"Thanks." Suddenly, the rolling ball of energy that propelled him to the hospital while probably breaking the land speed record dissipated. Nothing to do, just waiting now. Still, he walked around the lobby restlessly, idly flipping his badge open and closed. Open and closed.

People sat around him with the normal ailments - a teenager with a black eye and a bruised ego, a kid with a bleeding forehead, some old guy with a set of crutches. Of course, it didn't matter to them what was going on behind those doors. Although everybody in DC probably had heard the alerts that rolled out on the radio and TV in the aftermath of the bombing - and he could hear them talk about it - they didn't have a clue that those doors hid two of the best people he knew. He hoped he still knew them.

Booth swallowed a thick lump that rose in his throat at the thought. No sense in going there yet, since he knew well enough that a well-placed bomb could injure a man in a hundred different ways, but he said a quick prayer that it'd been badly constructed or hadn't detonated completely. The alternative was...unbearable. The news reports were still sketchy, despite the few hours it had taken him to get there from the weekend campsite he'd been assembling with his son, and none of his contacts seemed willing, or able, to fully fill him in.

"Excuse me, sir?" A voice called and he looked up to see if it was for him. An older woman in bright blue scrubs motioned him over. "I'm guessing your part of the investigation?"

"Yes," Booth lied smoothly, walking across the lobby in a few long strides. "Seely Booth, FBI." Showing his ID again, he followed the doctor behind the doors and into the controlled chaos of an emergency room. The skin on the back of his neck prickled.

"They must've called you in on your day off," the doctor remarked and pointed at his trail shoes.

"Mental health day."

"You picked a great day for that one." Booth wondered if it was illegal to strangle the doctor for the sarcasm in her voice, and decided it was. Probably. As far as the doctor knew, he didn't know these people from Adam, and he tried to not fault her for her flippant attitude - 'tried' being the operative word.

"So what can you tell me about this?" He looked around as they strolled, far too slowly, looking for any sign of Bones or Hodgins.

"Well," she paused and pulled a clipboard out of a caddy beside a closed door. "It looks like this one got off lucky. The other one not so much." She notated something on a sheet before placing it back in the holder. "Honestly, I think we just need to close our borders. I didn't become a doctor to stitch up terrorist leavings."

Reflexively, his hands balled at his sides. "Ma'am, we don't know who planted the bomb. Now tell me what's going on. Dr. Brennan first."

She raised her eyebrows at his chilled tone but turned to open the door. "I hope you have a strong constitution, Agent."

Without bothering to reply, he immediately looked over head into the room beyond and felt his heart plummet down somewhere in the vicinity of China. "This is the better of the two?" He said, his voice barely more than a whisper.

"Mhmmm," she replied, stepping to the side with her arms crossed over her chest. "The other poor guy was DOA. We'll be moving her to the ICU as soon as we have a bed set up, but, all things considered, it could be worse. She's stable now, more or less."

Booth stood in the doorway, unable to bring himself to continue the few steps to beside her bed. If he stood there long enough, maybe Brennan would sit up, blue eyes laughing, and say, "Ha! We pulled the lamb over your eyes!" And Hodgins would come in, clap him on the back, and joke about sticking it to the man. Oh God, Hodgins...

The doctor cleared her throat, and he realized that, of course, wasn't going to happen. The small army of monitors and bags attested to just how very real it was. "I'm guessing you're not actually here for the investigation, are you?"

"No," Booth admitted, showing no shame. He met her eyes for a brief moment before finally making a move to fully enter the room. "She's my partner, but I'm not family. And you're not going to kick me out." The tone of his voice denied any chance of a rebuttal.

"Does she have any family?" For the first time, the doctor sounded a little less detached and somewhat curious.

Booth shrugged and moved closed to the bed. Small brown spots stained the white sheets, causing him to wonder for a second if it was polkadotted before he realized it was blood. He screwed his eyes tight against the sight, but that only served to sear it more clearly into his memory; he was sure he'd remember every moment of this until the day he died. "Family?" His voice came slowly. "None that you're likely to see."

"Alright then." The doctor's voice sounded somehow far away and Booth wondered briefly if he was going into shock. "You can stay until I hear otherwise, but like I said, we'll be moving her soon. Best case, she'll be in and out of surgery for the next few days. We'll be playing it by ear from there. There are some extensive internal injuries, and we can't be sure of much, really, other than she must've been a real lucky to lady to be standing where she was when it happened."

He nodded and slowly slid into padded chair beside the bed, carefully avoiding any tubes or wires. "Thanks." The words felt like dust in his mouth. Behind him, there was the soft swish of a shutting door and the complete hush that fell over the room was almost palpable.

Ignoring the strong antiseptic smell as he took a deep breath, Booth leaned closed to Brennan's still face, very familiar and yet strange with the scratches and bruises and wires that had seemed to take it over.

She'd never been short on strength, and since it seemed to be a day for prayers he said another, longer, one that hoped her sheer stubborness would be enough to bring her through. His mind flickered to Hodgins and a choked sound died in his throat.

What a stupid fucking waste.

Being angry was better than being immobilized by grief but he couldn't bring himself to muster more than a couple of bitter thoughts before getting dragged back to the moment, sitting in a room shared with more equipment than seemed real. And the half dead body of his closest friend and ally.

Leaning down, he briefly touched his lips to the corner of her forehead just to the left of a couple of stitches. Half dead, maybe, but half alive, too. God, he knew the emotional olympics would come later but, for now, the best he could do was stay held together for her. Anything less seemed like an insult.


End file.
